U.S. Rugby Parabiago visited Rugby VII Torino in Settimo Torinese, and got away with victory after a closely fought match. 24-23 was the final score, after a last second kick by the hosts bounced off the bar.

Keeping the camera dry on such a rainy day was just not possible, so I am glad the camera did not die on me. And a brighter lens would have been in order: the Sigma 50-500mm offers a range few lenses can match, but it is not the right lens if you have to work in overcast weather. And talking about this... if anybody has a Nikkor 80-200mm/2.8 to sell, let me know.

Despite the above mentioned limitations, I took many pictures at the match. I am publishing them in case some of the players fancy having a memento of this well fought match.

Another image from the Rugby VII Torino vs Borgo Poncarale match played on 31/10/2010. The player on the ground was initially hidden by a forest of legs; I took this picture after most of the players had moved away.
Quite remarkably, he appeared to not having been hit while laying on the ground.

Despite watching rugby since the early Eighties, I have never seen a live rugby match before this, in October 2010. Rugby was not the most common sport in my neighbourhood in Italy, and even in the years I spent in the UK I have never seen people playing rugby. So all the rugby players I have ever seen were in their 20s or 30s. I am glad to see that there are exceptions, and that age, sometimes, does not matter: the gentleman wearing the yellow and blue jersey in the pictures below is not in this 30s, and most definitely not in his 20s. And he played as good as any other player on the field in the two Rugby VII Torino matches I watched, with Borgo Poncarale and with Rugby San Mauro.

The location: Settimo Torinese, near Turin, in Italy. The event: a rugby match between Rugby VII Torino, the home team, and Borgo Poncarale from Veneto. The unwelcome guest: rain constantly pouring down on players, umpires and yours truly.

The first time I watched a Six Nations match on tv was around 1982, and back then that rugby competition was still known as the Five Nations. The first time I watched an NFL match on TV was in the early 1980s, and the Oakland Raiders were playing with Jim Plunkett as quarterback. American football has been one of the enduring passion of my life, and rugby is a sport I appreciate a lot.

And up to the past weekend I had never seen a live rugby match or a live American football match, despite spending two years in the USA and five in England. Well, that's sorted now.

Thanks to the Blacks Rivoli (football) and to the VII Rugby Torino, I have been allowed to shoot two matches from the sidelines: Blacks Rivoli vs Lancieri Novara, a match valid for the Italian Under 21 American Football Championship on Saturday night; then, on Sunday afternoon, the VII Torino Rugby vs San Mauro, valid for the Seniores Championship.

Well, here are a few pictures taken Sunday. Thanks to Graziano Destro of VII Rugby Torino for providing me with sideline credentials. The team's name is a wordplay, since the Roman ordinal VII is read, in Italian, as "Settimo", which is also the name of the city where the team plays, Settimo Torinese.